At the end of 2016 I realized, to my horror, that I hadn’t read a single book in Spanish, so one of my main reading goals for this year is to read more books in Spanish, preferably by women. And they can’t be translations, that would be cheating, the goal is to read more Hispanophone writers. Enter Contigo en la distancia, by Chilean writer Carla Guelfenbein. This novel won one of the most famous literary prizes in the Spanish-speaking world, the Premio Alfaguara. And I […]
If You Ever Scream “Societal Expectations Of Women Are A Prison,” This Might Be The Book For You
But like a rat or an icy wind, love creeps in. Well, I’m starting off my first Cannonball Read a little behind, but this was a great book to start with. Very surreal and oddly moving, Little Nothing will stick with me for a long time. While a lot of fantasy fiction gets caught up in sentiment (Not a slam. I read a lot of fantasy.), Little Nothing goes for something a little more raw and realistic. Set in a vaguely 19th century unnamed Eastern […]
Life’s too short to read stories without well-written female characters
I feel a little bad calling one of Le Guin’s books meh, but A Wizard of Earthsea was really only so-so for me. I bumped it up a little in the rating purely due to how groundbreaking the book must have been in 1968 when it was released. This series influenced many famous authors and for good reason. A wizard protagonist with dark skin? A school for wizards? An epic bildungsroman featuring a somewhat unlikeable character? All those things should be considered when evaluating this […]
A bit too much of the wrong brother
This is the fourth book in the Johannes Cabal series, and the only one that uses its main character sparingly. I loved the first three Cabal novels, particularly Johannes Cabal the Detective, which is the second one. I also love the handful of Cabal short stories, particularly Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day, the first Cabal story and a brilliant introduction to a brilliant character. Johannes Cabal is a German-born man who was raised from middle childhood in England. He is a necromancer ‘of some little infamy’, […]
Hermione Winters’ Tale
I’m always thrilled to read books that my students recommend to me. Even when their tastes as readers diverge wildly from my own, understanding the stories that resonate with them gives me that opportunity to have a conversation about literature and tone and theme that might otherwise just be tuned out. I mean, come on, I love Shakespeare, but he can be a hard sell for a sixteen year old who wants to hear her voice represented. Enter Exit, Pursued by a Bear, which obviously had me […]
Well that was darker than expected
3.5 stars. Just like faintingviolet, I had to rush out and get the sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone. It ended on a bit of a cliffhanger and I just had to find out what was next for Karou, Akiva, and company. Like many middle books of trilogies, there was a lot of set-up and plot mechanics to wade through in Days of Blood and Starlight. It was still very readable however and Taylor did a good job of building tension and suspense while […]
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